It means seeing everything as though for the first time, in order to reconfigure our inner space. It is a second birth. We emerge into an empty space and seek to understand how the movement of marks takes place within it, until we grasp the correspondences between marks and inner and mental states: between the mark, gesture, emotion and thought.
Discovering the Mark
In this first workshop, there will be no aesthetic or formal concerns, only expressive ones. We know that aesthetics—that is, the formal evaluation of artistic expression—developed only relatively recently, whereas art has always had a function rather than a purely aesthetic purpose. In the past, the function of art was magical and spiritual: certain sounds, gestures, dances and paintings had a sacred rather than an aesthetic meaning. A particular color or piece of music acted upon people, marked a transition or expressed an appeal to the gods. We cannot regard the primordial works that have come down to us as “ugly” or anti-aesthetic. On the contrary, what fascinates us and draws us into another dimension of beauty is precisely their liberating and revealing power and function. The sacred dimension of art is still present today among many Indigenous peoples, whose forms of expression cannot be reduced to aesthetic judgments.
But how can we recover that innocence and purity of expression when we are so deeply shaped by aesthetic models? The moment we put a pen or pencil to paper, harsh aesthetic judgment immediately takes over, destroying any possibility of going beyond and entering into the form. We must therefore stop judging ourselves according to an aesthetic model and instead try to understand ourselves through a system for interpreting marks. First of all, the mark must be “freed” from the mental and physical constraints in which we find ourselves, so that we can express the energy, enthusiasm and expressive richness we had in our childhood drawings. We cannot draw or paint without knowing why, without even asking ourselves why, and without rediscovering the lost meaning of our first childhood scribbles.
Artistic and Technical Objectives
Broaden the range and types of marks we make. Learn the language of the mark and its evolution. Loosen and strengthen the hand and the articulation of drawing. Study and reproduce the marks made by the masters. Develop sensitivity to drawing media and surfaces.
Existential Objectives
Reconcile with and appreciate one’s past. Understand the correspondences between marks and mental and emotional content. Develop attention.
Spiritual Objectives
Connect with the deepest meaning of artistic language and with the meaning of one’s own “journey” on earth.
Workshop Topics
Drawing as a spontaneous mark; the play of gesture; harmony and symmetry; space; rhythm; the cyclical nature of events; scribbling and graphic interpretation; translating and transforming impulses; drawing materials; drawings by the masters.